Sports history lecturer to speak at Western Maryland College

Dr. Nancy L. Struna, a University of Maryland kinesiology professor, will present the fourth Wenner-Wingate Memorial Lecture on the History and Literature of Sport at Western Maryland College.

The discussion, "Sport, Leisure and Gender in Early America," is scheduled at 8 p.m. March 4 in McDaniel Lounge and is free.

Dr. Struna, who also serves as affiliate associate professor of history for the University of Maryland, earned her bachelor of science degree in 1972 from the University of Wisconsin. Three years later she received her master's from the University of Maryland College Park, and in 1979 she received her doctorate there.

After teaching several subjects, including physical education at schools in Ohio and Maryland, Dr. Struna returned to the University of Maryland in 1976 as an instructor in the physical education department. Two years later she became a lecturer in that department and in the department of history, as well as coordinator of a service program in physical education.

In 1980, she was appointed assistant professor of physical education for the university's School of Physical Education, Recreation and School Health Education, and adjunct assistant professor of American studies at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. She has been in her current teaching position at College Park since 1988.

The Wenner-Wingate Memorial Lecture was established through the bequest of Dr. Evelyn Wingate Wenner, a longtime Western Maryland professor of literature and a resident of Westminster. Before her death in 1989 at the age of 88, Dr. Wenner planned the new lectureship in honor of her husband, C. Malcolm Wenner Jr., and her brother, W. Wilson Wingate.

Before his death in 1975, Mr. Wenner was a retired railroad official who supported the college. A distinguished Baltimore sportswriter in the 1920s and 1930s and a 1918 graduate of Western Maryland, Mr. Wingate is credited with coining the name of the WMC mascot -- the Green Terrors -- and with advancing lacrosse as a writer for The Sun and The (Baltimore) News-Post.

Information: 857-2441. Request for special services such as sign-interpeting: 857-2518, at least two weeks before the event.